The Headmaster's Apprentice
by the dork knight
Summary: After five years of secrets, Dumbledore takes Harry on as his apprentice during his sixth year to prepare him for his inevitable confrontation with Voldemort. Meanwhile, the dark lord is looking for his own way to finally end the Boy-Who-Lived.


**DISCLAIMER: J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter. I don't.**

**Chapter One**

"Harry, a word before you go in," said Dumbledore, leading Harry into the Weasley's garage. He pulled out his wand and silently cast a Lumos spell to give them a little light.

"Harry, I would like to ask you a favor this year," said Dumbledore.

"Anything sir," said Harry.

"I would like you to become my apprentice this year," said Dumbledore. "With Tom now publicly back in the wizarding world, I fear that this war is only going to escalate even worse. I once foolishly believed that you could have a normal childhood until you came of age. Now I see differently and wish to prepare you like I should have been doing since after your first year when we knew for sure that Tom was still out there. So, will you accept this old mans help?"

Harry was so shocked by this request that if you had waved a feather near him, it would have knocked him over.

"I, um… I… Of course sir," said Harry. "What do I have to do?"

"Just come to Hogwarts as you usually would on September the first," said Dumbledore. "However, instead of the normal classes you would be taking during your N.E.W.T. years, you will have personal lessons with me. I'll be sending one of the Hogwarts house elves by in the next day or so with a list of all of the books and materials you will be needed, so do not worry about what classes you had planned on taking this year when your O.W.L. scores come later today."

Suddenly, Harry thought he saw a problem with Dumbledore's idea.

"Sir, what about after I'm finished being an apprentice?" asked Harry. "Without taking my sixth and seventh years at Hogwarts, wont it make finding a job harder for me."

"I'm sorry Harry, I sometimes forget you didn't grow up in the wizarding world," said Dumbledore. "Being a part of an apprenticeship most times far out reaches a regular magical school education, depending on who the master is. And not to pat myself on the back too much, I believe that apprenticing under me will go quite far in getting you any job you wish to pursue when we are finished."

"Oh," said Harry, relaxing a little as that weight was lifted from his mind.

"You must remember Harry that before Hogwarts, the one way to learn magic in Britain was to be selected as an apprentice," said Dumbledore. "Before the founders, hundreds of people never learned to harness their magical ability, which in turn made them eventually lose their magic because it remained stagnant. But that is something we will discuss at a later time. For now, I think it best we get you inside. I'm sure Molly is looking forward to seeing you and has quite an array of foods to feed you."

"She usually does sir," said Harry with a smile.

Dumbledore extinguished the light from his wand as he and Harry left the garage and made their way towards the back door of the Burrow.

"Sir, about Ron and Hermione," Harry started to say.

"Feel free to inform them about your new educational direction," said Dumbledore. "There really is no need to keep it a secret, as once the school year starts everyone will know since you will not be attending regular classes."

"Thank you," said Harry. "I really didn't want to keep this from them and lie to them."

"I understand Harry," Dumbledore said as he reached up and knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" asked a slightly tense Mrs. Weasley.

"It is I, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore," he said. "Headmaster of Hogwarts, and the person who once caught you and Arthur on the astronomy tower during your seventh year. I also remember the color green from that night."

The door was quickly opened and Mrs. Weasley was blushing enough to match her hair.

"Not another word," she said, then looked at Harry,

"Harry, so nice to see you," she said with a warm smile. "Come in, come in."

Mrs. Weasley stepped aside, allowing Harry to walk in.

"As much as I would love to, I'm afraid that I have obligations elsewhere," said Dumbledore. "Molly, I trust you to watch out for Harry this summer?"

"Of course I will," said Mrs. Weasley.

"Then I shall be off," said Dumbledore. "Harry."

Turning on his heal, Dumbledore disapparated away as Mrs. Weasley closed the door.

"Now," she said as she turned to Harry. "Let me take a look at you… Dear me, you've dropped weight. Not good. Not good at all. Those muggles you live with must really need to learn how to properly feed a growing boy such as yourself. Come on, I've got soup cooking."

Harry followed Mrs. Weasley into the kitchen and sat down at the table while she puttered around, fixing a large pot of soup.

"Arthur has been working late nights ever since… Well, you know," said Mrs. Weasley. "So I always keep something warm going for whenever he gets home."

Conjuring a large ceramic bowl, Mrs. Weasley ladled a very generous amount of soup into the bowl before setting it and a loaf of freshly made bread and some butter onto the table.

"Eat up before it gets cold," she said, gently patting him on the shoulder before going about her business.

As Harry enjoyed the soup, he watched as Mrs. Weasley checked on the knitting needles that had been charmed and were in the process of making the Weasley sweaters for Christmas. She cleaned various areas of the house, sometimes more than once. All the while, she would occasionally check the family clock, which Harry noticed that all the hands were pointing at 'mortal peril'. Harry figured that with Voldemort back, everyone's lives were in danger.

Halfway through his bowl of soup, Mr. Weasley returned home, each of them asking the other a personal question to ensure that it wasn't someone polyjuiced to look like them, something that Harry had learned happened quite frequently during the last war. However, it still didn't prevent someone who had been imperioused from getting in.

"I smell soup," a sleep voice from the stairs said.

Harry turned to see Ron walking over as he rubbed his eyes and yawned.

"Ron, it's three in the morning, you should be asleep," said Mrs. Weasley.

"But I smelled soup," said Ron, who then noticed Harry. "When did you get here?"

"Not long ago," said Harry, using his foot to slide out the seat next to him, knowing it would be impossible to send him back to bed when there was food to be eaten.

Ron sat down and nodded his thanks to his mum as she set a bowl of soup down in front of him, knowing it would be futile trying to send her youngest son back to bed when others were eating. Plus, he hadn't been quite right ever since what happened at the Ministry. That it made it hard for her to tell him no to something as simple as food.

"So," said Ron with a mouthful of bread. "What do you want to do this summer?"

"Nothing really," said Harry. "I just want to relax, maybe fly around a bit."

It was at that moment that Harry realized that he might not be able to play Quidditch that year, what with being Dumbledore's apprentice. He would have to ask the Headmaster about that next time he saw him.

"Sounds good to me," said Ron. "Though, I hope you don't mind if Luna joins us."

"Luna?" asked Harry, noticing his friend start to blush a little.

"Yeah," said Ron, avoiding Harry's look. "She and I have, um…"

"Oh son, there's nothing to be embarrassed about," said Mr. Weasley. "Harry, Ron and Luna have started seeing each other in a more than just friends kind of way."

"Really?" asked Harry, surprised by the news. He remembered most of last year when Ron had made fun of the odd Ravenclaw.

"Yeah, well," Ron said, grabbing himself some more bread and dunking it into his soup. "She's quite interesting when you get to know her."

"I bet she is," said Harry. "You'll have to explain how that all started."

"She lives nearby," said Ron. "Only a thirty minute walk, or five minute broom ride, depending on how you go. Once we got back from Hogwarts, she started coming over again, like when she was younger and played with Ginny all the time. We got to talking and one thing lead to another and…"

Ron trailed off, the blush returning to his face.

Harry looked over at Mr. Weasley, who was enthralled by a muggle manual that looked to be for a VCR, and then at Mrs. Weasley, who was busy with the laundry.

"Did you and Luna…" Harry started to ask quietly as he leaned over to Ron.

"Did Luna and I what?" Ron asked, just as quietly.

"You know," said Harry, giving Ron a pointed look.

Ron's eyes shot wide open. "What, no," he said. "No, nothing like that. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'd like to. But no, we haven't done _that_. Just snogged a bit here and there. Why?"

"Just wondering," said Harry.

"Have you?" asked Ron.

"No," said Harry. "When could I? My date with Parvati during the Yule Ball didn't exactly go all that well. Neither did my date with Cho last year. Aside from those two, I haven't gone out with anyone else. Kind of hard to with a crazed dark wizard who has an unhealthy obsession with a teenaged boy."

"Oh, that's brilliant," said Ron. "I should tell that to Luna. Maybe we could have her put a story in the Quibbler. 'You-Know-Who secretly in love with Boy-Who-Lived'."

Harry groaned as he banged his head against the table while Ron laughed.

The two talked and joked around as the continued eating, and after they had finished, Mrs. Weasley sent them up to bed, telling Harry that he would actually be staying in Charlie's old room, which surprised Harry. Every summer he had spent with the Weasley's, he and Ron had shared a room. Not that he was going to complain though, as it meant he didn't have to listen to Ron snore the night away.

In the room, Harry found his trunk and Hedwig's empty cage already waiting for him. The window was opened, so he figured that Mrs. Weasley must have let his snowy white owl out so she could hunt for something to eat.

Harry stripped down to his boxers before he crawled under the homemade patchwork quilt, snuggling down for a good nights sleep.

OoOoOoOoOoO

In his private chambers, Voldemort sat on his throne as he continued to ponder over all that had happened on that night at the Ministry.

Some how, Potter had managed to not only fend off his attempt to posses him, the boy had managed to cause him pain unlike anything he had felt before. Pain far worse than that night so many years ago when he first came face to face with Harry Potter and tried to kill him, only to have his curse rebound back to him ten fold, obliterating his body and trapping his soul on this mortal plain. The pain was even worse than when he had been living as a parasite on Quirrell and just the mere touch from the boy turned the fool into dust and forcing the most powerful and feared dark wizard to flee for his life.

What was it about Harry Potter that made his so special? Before, he believed it had been some kind of blood magic his mother had given him when she sacrificed her life to try and save his. However, the ritual that returned him to a corporeal body should have removed all traces of that protection. In fact, it had removed them. He had touched Harry in that graveyard on the night of his return and felt nothing as he watched the young boy scream and cry out in pain, as though the protection had been reversed.

Then there was the duel between the two of them. Their wands had locked together do to each of them having a piece of such a powerful and magical animal within their wands cores. But that meant nothing. The boy should not have been able to overpower his own magic, forcing it back into his own wand. He was too young, his magic too undeveloped to be able to harness it in such a way. Unless… No, it wouldn't be possible unless his raw magical power was greater than his own when focused.

Voldemort was now beginning to finally understand why the prophecy had labeled Harry as being able to defeat him. While Voldemort had spent many years learning to harness his magical core and preformed various dark rituals to become as powerful as he was, the boy had simply been born with a power greater than his own. A power which can only grow more and more until the time when the inevitable final confrontation between the two of them took place, and the boy would undoubtedly win.

There was no question about it in the mind of the dark lord. Harry Potter would kill him and all he had strived for all these years would be for nothing.

That is, unless he was able to find a way to make himself even more powerful than any magical being on the face of the Earth.

Voldemort rose from his throne and apparated to a hidden room hundreds of miles away and half a mile underground. There were no doors, windows, or air vents leading to this room. The oxygen in the room was created by using magic. No one other than the dark lord knew of this rooms existence, which is why he kept his most prized treasures here, including hundreds upon hundreds of ancient tomes and scrolls of magic long believed to have been lost. Many would kill to get their hands on the information hidden within, including a few of his own followers. He wouldn't be surprised that if Bellatrix found out about this place, that she would try and slit his through while he slept.

Over the next few hours, Voldemort searched for the information he was looking for, until he found it.

He sat there at the table littered with books and scrolls as he stared at a very faded sheet of yellowed parchment. Most of the writing was hard to read and written in an ancient language that few even bothered to learn to understand anymore. Even Voldemort had trouble deciphering most of the words. However, the words weren't necessary. The image drawn in the center of the sheet of parchment spoke far more in volume than the words. The image of a large chest with demonic heads and hands carved into it along with hundreds upon hundreds of small protection runes surrounding the lid.

A sickly smile crossed Voldemort's snake like face, knowing that what was contained in this chest would not only bring an end to Harry Potter, but would also give himself the everlasting life he so craved.

OoOoOoOoOoO

**A/N:** So, that's the beginning. Anyone want to take a guess as to what Voldemort is after?


End file.
